MRS. McCAIN COMES CLEAN

GOP Candidate's Wife Goes Public With Her Battle
Against Drugs

When the moment came at San Francisco's Leadership High School, Cindy
McCain, wife of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, didn't
flinch.

``Should marijuana be legal?'' asked sophomore Sam Heller,
15.

``I view marijuana as highly addictive,'' answered McCain. ``I have
very negative, very strong feelings about this.''

When Heller persisted, McCain turned to him. ``Honey, I've been
there,'' she said quietly.

For the 45-year-old McCain, the mother of four, her husband's
ascension to the status of serious contender in the 2000 presidential
race has meant coming to terms and going public with her own private
troubles.

Eight years ago, she became addicted to prescription drugs following
back surgery.

``I'm in recovery,'' she told the classroom, as students listened in
awe.

``The hard part for me was admitting, eight years ago, when I had a
problem,'' she said in an interview later. ``I was adept at hiding
what I was doing. . . . It was very hard facing my husband. I didn't
want to let him down. I felt that I failed him.''

Cindy McCain, who has been described as shy, more comfortable at home
and a ``reluctant campaigner,'' projected more of her husband's
polished, go-get-'em style in her visit to San Francisco yesterday.

She has watched her husband, an Arizona senator, go from a mere
asterisk to become the Republican challenger to watch. He is now dead
even in the polls with Texas Gov. George W. Bush in New Hampshire, the
state with the first-in-the-nation primary.

``I'm here to predict we'll pass him (in the New Hampshire polls) next
week,'' she told a crowd of 70 enthusiastic McCain supporters during a
luncheon yesterday at the Bank of America building. ``There is a
difference in experience.''

At Leadership High School, San Francisco's only public charter high
school, the former special education teacher plunged into classrooms,
asking questions and giving students an honest assessment of campaign
life.

``When you start to run for the presidency, there's no manual,'' she
told them. ``Being part of the solution is exciting. But it has its
down days . . . days when I'd rather pull the covers over my head and
say, `I don't want to do this.' ''

When she didn't know an an-

swer to their queries, she picked up her cell phone to get them --
from the candidate himself.

``He wants to know if you favor the death penalty for youth offenders,'' she
asked the senator, reached in his hotel room on a break. (Answer: He favors
the death penalty, and letting states determine how to carry it out.)

And later, she talked frankly of the effects of the national spotlight
on her children and her husband, who has been accused of having a
volcanic temper.

`A BAD RAP'

``I've never seen the temper. I've never witnessed these explosions .
. . and I've been married to him 20 years. So I find this kind of
humorous, in a way,'' she said. ``He's a passionate man, there's no
doubt about it. . . . He wants people to understand where he's coming
from. . . . I do think it's a bad rap.''

She's pleased her husband's book, ``Faith of My Fathers,'' has been on
best-seller lists for nine weeks, but she said some parts -- like the
chapter in which McCain recalls his passion for an exotic dancer known
as the Flame of Florida -- aren't especially suitable for her kids.
She only let them listen to the abridged version, on tape.

``They didn't need to hear all of it,'' she said, laughing. ``There
wasn't anything in the book I didn't know. But it is funny to read it
in print.''

Even in a very public campaign, Cindy McCain still holds some things
close to the vest.

She didn't volunteer that she recently returned from Europe on a
medical mission -- personally escorting a blind 19-year-old Ukrainian
girl named Marina to Phoenix so she could undergo an operation to give
her sight.

``It is something that drives me, that means a lot to me,'' she said,
when questioned about the work. ``I'd like to continue to do these
things. . . . As first lady, I'd hope that I could.''

This latest trip was one of dozens of similar missions she's
undertaken in the past 15 years as part of her work heading her
Helmsley Family Foundation. She's flown overseas to assist a Croatian
solder who took shrapnel in his face, a Vietnamese baby with a cleft
palate and a young boy with a heart condition.

``I didn't feel comfortable saying we could help them and not go get
them. Most of them have never been out of their villages, and I'm a
mother,'' she said. ``I feel more comfortable making sure they're
comfortable.''

As first lady, she said, she would also promote adoption. The McCains
adopted an infant from Bangladesh with a cleft palate; their daughter,
Bridget, is now 8.

SHE'S ASKED TO SPEAK

And she now gets a lot of mail from people who want her to continue to
talk about drug abuse.

It has been an adventure that she says is both exhilarating and
incredibly tough.

``Yes, it's always difficult for me,'' she said, in an interview with
The Chronicle. ``And if the moment comes when I don't find it
difficult to talk about what happens -- then I've got another
problem,'' she said. ``The daily discussion is good, because that
keeps me in recovery. It keeps me focused. Because for anybody in
recovery, addiction is a fine line.

``No matter what, this was good,'' she said of the race. ``Now I have
the opportunity to help others . . . and what else could you ask for?''